


And When the Day Arrives, I'll Become the Sky

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Six Trope Bingo Card [6]
Category: Digimon Adventure
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:31:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they find Yamato, he's one hundred and twenty-two, scarred, and limping slightly.</p>
<p>AU where Yamato doesn't make it through the gate back to Odaiba at the end of episode 28.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And When the Day Arrives, I'll Become the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a Trent Reznor quote. Part of my Round Six Trope Bingo Card.

The light goes suddenly, completely dark, and his shoulder slams hard against unforgiving stone. Yamato gasps with pain, tightening his arms around Tsunomon for an instant until the digimon squeaks in discomfort. Yamato loosens his hold and sinks to the ground, fighting through the pain from the collision. For a split second, he realizes what this means--I'm _stuck_ here?--but then he remembers that the castle's crumbling to the ground around them and then there's nothing for it but to grab Tsunomon and make a break for the door. He dodges falling rocks, bursts through heavy doors, slips and slides down crumbling steps, and when he comes out of the panic of his frantic dash, he's a quarter mile away, breathing heavily as he stares behind him at the rubble that is all that remains of the castle.

For a long time, Yamato stares at the destruction, breathing heavily while he tries to make sense of what's happened. In the end, it's Tsunomon slipping out of his arms to hop up on his shoulder and nuzzle at his cheek that snaps him out of his daze. He reaches up, laying a hand on Tsunomon and closing his eyes to fight down the tears. "Come on, Tsunomon," he says, trying to sound braver than he feels. "We need to go back to Gennai and see if he has any other ideas."

\----

Gennai doesn't have any other ideas. It's not that Yamato's surprised, but it still stings to know that he's stuck here indefinitely.

When Tsunomon finds him four hours later, sitting in the garden and staring up at the water that surrounds them, he doesn't ask how Yamato's feeling. He doesn't promise that it will be okay. He doesn't say anything at all. He just settles down next to his partner and leans against him. Yamato usually appreciates that about his partner, but right now he'd give just about anything for Takeru's laugh or the clacking of Koushirou's computer, or even Taichi's inane chatter. Right now, the quiet is damning, a reminder of everything that Yamato's lost in just one afternoon. Right now, the quiet is cloying, pressing into his skin and making it hard to breathe. Right now the silence is oppressive, making him want to get up and scream himself, just to break it.

Right now, the quiet is too much.

So he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his harmonica, and starts to play.

\----

When he wakes the next morning, it isn't so much that he feels better as that he feels more resolute. If this is going to be his home for the foreseeable future, then he might as well make the most of it.

When he tells Gennai as much, he nods sagely. "I won't say that I'm glad that you didn't make it home, because I'm not, but I will say that I'm glad you're here. There are certain to be digimon that will take advantage of the power void Vandemon has left behind, and the world will need someone to protect it." He reaches out, placing a hand on Yamato's, sadness in his eyes. "I'm not glad you didn't make it home, but if it had to be any of you, I'm glad it was you.

Yamato nods, grateful for the honesty. "I'll need training," he cautions.

Gennai nods. "And that I can provide. We will make you strong enough to protect this world for as long as it takes for your friends to come back and find you."

Yamato sits a little straighter. "You really think--?"

"I know. They cannot defeat Vandemon without you. But time moves differently here than it does there. A single day there--"

"Don't tell me, Gennai." He could probably calculate it from how long Taichi was gone when he'd disappeared so many months ago, but he won't. He can't. "Please. I need to have hope. I need to believe that they'll be coming back for me."

"They will. It will take time, Yamato, but they will come back."

Yamato nods. "Then in the meantime, I need to get stronger. When can we begin?"

Gennai's smile is still sad, but it's there. "We can begin today."

\---

Yamato stays strong in his resolution to not ask Gennai how differently time passes in the Digital World compared to the Human World. (He tries not to think too hard about when he stopped thinking about the Human World as the Real World.) He stays strong as he fights for his new home as fiercely as he fought for the chance to go back to his old home, and he grows into his unintentional position as the leader of the Resistance against the Dark Masters. He stays strong as he makes friends and he makes enemies, but, above all, he makes progress. He stays strong as he chips away at the Dark Masters' ever increasing control of the Digital World in small ways, standing tall and certain at WereGarurumon's side as they fight.

He stays strong and doesn't ask even as Gennai still holds quiet birthday celebrations for him each year that passes in the Digital World. Even as he aches quietly for every year that his friends have left him here. Even as he hopes that his friends will come back. Even as he is torn apart by his ever shifting loyalties. Even as, on his twentieth birthday, he prays to go back and prays that he never has to choose between this world and the Human World.

Because, yes, he fought with his friends, and they were strong together. Strong and brave and victorious. But his friends made it back, and he didn't, and now. Now he's built a life for himself here. Here, in the Digital World, and by the time he turns twenty, it's almost half his life that he's lived here, and more than half his conscious life. This is all he remembers, now. All he knows.

And he has new friends now, friends that he wants to protect, wants to save, wants to lead to their own sort of motley victory.

So, as he downs to saké that Gennai has somehow procured for them, he finds himself selfishly wishing that he never has to choose.

\----

He's one hundred and twenty-two years old when it happens. He's fought countless battles, and has the limp and the scars to prove it. 

Garurumon comes around the corner with two tagalongs, and Yamato has a split second to fear that they've been compromised before the sight of who he's brought along suddenly becomes clearer than anything Yamato's seen in ages. He suddenly feels every one of the hundred and eleven years he's spent in the Digital World with no one but Garurumon, Gennai, and the occasional recruits they can scrounge up for company. He sways slightly on his feet, and Garurumon bounds over to him, nosing at his shoulder and giving him something to lean on. Yamato pats at his snout affectionately, murmuring idle praises at him. "Thank you." Then he looks up at Sora and Jou, taking a moment to acknowledge how different he must look, before straightening and limping across to them. "Sora," he says softly. "Jou." He tries not to wince as he kneels down to reach out to Piyomon and Gomamon. "Hey guys."

Gomamon leans into his hand, face scrunched up in confusion. "Yamato?"

Yamato smiles and nods. "It's me." Gritting his teeth, he gets to his feet and turns away. "Come on, Gennai will be able to explain better than I will."

"Yamato--" Sora starts, but Yamato cuts her off.

"Whatever it is that you need from me, it can wait a few minutes."

Sora swallows and doesn't say anything else. Yamato nods and turns to pat Garurumon on the shoulder. Garurumon lowers himself to the ground, and Yamato hops up on his back, signaling for Sora, Jou, and their partner digimon to join him. When they're all settled, Yamato pats Garurumon on the shoulder again. "Home, Garurumon."

Yamato doesn't let himself turn to see the shock on Sora and Jou's faces.

\----

It's Gennai that insists he go back to the Human World.

"Gennai, we don't even know if my body will survive back there. I've been here so long--"

"It will, Yamato. It's your home."

"It's not," he says, voice sharp and harsh. "It hasn't been for more than a hundred years."

Gennai sighs. "Be that as it may, you cannot save this world without saving theirs first."

"Gennai--"

"I will not change my mind, Yamato. I cannot make you go, but I will not change my mind about whether or not you should."

Yamato sighs, ferocity in the sound.

"Um… Yamato-kun?" Sora says quietly. "We really… we can't save Odaiba without you."

Yamato leans back. He stares up at the ceiling, the only home he's known for as long as he can remember. Gabumon lays a paw on his knee, and Yamato looks down at him.

"My memory is longer than yours, Yamato. I remember the thousands of years before you and the other Chosen Children came to us. I remember those few bright months with everyone. And I remember everything since. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the happiest I have ever seen you was in that moment when you thought you were going back to the Human World." Gabumon swallows, his eyes clear and sharp. "Please, Yamato. Show me what you loved about that place. Show me your first home. Show me that smile one more time."

Yamato stares down at Gabumon, surprised and confused. "But, Gabumon. This is your home. You--"

"I am your partner digimon, Yamato. I was born to stand at your side, and I will always do that. But I want to see you happy more than anything else. So please. Show me."

Yamato swallows, then nods slowly. "Alright. I will."

\----

The return to the Human World is more painful than anything he's ever felt, up to and including when he'd injured his leg almost thirty years ago. He holds his screams in from years of practice, but he can tell he's shrinking. Shrinking and shifting and returning to the body of an eleven year-old child.

He falls to his knees on Odaiba's streets, shaking and shivering. Instinctively, he tugs up the sleeve of the long sleeve shirt he's wearing, and finds that he's actually relieved to see the scar from a battle with MetalSeadramon just under fifty years ago still marring the skin of his arm. He looks over at Gabumon and sees that he still sports his scars as well. Their return to their old forms hasn't diminished the years they spent together in the Digital World, and Yamato is glad of that.

Even though, against all odds, he's made it back to the Human World, he doesn't have to lose what he had at home.

Sora reaches a hand out to him. "Come on, Yamato. We have a world to save."

Yamato's smile is small and not a little bitter. But he takes her hand, holding his now too-large clothes on his body as he gets to his feet. "Yeah. Yeah, we do." He reaches for the clothes he'd worn to summer camp all those years ago, the ones that Gennai had insisted on saving, and that he'd forced into Yamato's hands before they'd gone through the Gate back to the Human World. He slips out of the overlarge shirt and into the small green turtleneck of all those years ago. He feels small and strange in this body, weak, somehow, and he doesn't like it. "Alright. Let's get me somewhere I can change."

\----

When he hears Koushirou explain the plan, it seems almost laughably simple. But Taichi looks more than a little terrified, at least to Yamato's trained eyes, so he puts on a strong face.

"We'll do it."

"Yeah," Taichi says, and Yamato wonders if anyone else can hear the tremble in his voice. "We got this."

Takeru and Hikari look scared (and small. So, so small), but they trust their big brothers, and Yamato knows there's nothing else to be done. He reaches for Taichi's hand, steadying him. "You ready for this?"

"Not on your life."

Yamato grins back. "Hey, I made it back for this, didn't I?"

Something in Taichi softens at the assertion. "Yeah. Yeah, you did, didn't you?"

Yamato squeezes Taichi's hand where it's clasped in his. "No matter what. We'll be a team. Together, right?"

Taichi grins back. "Together."

When the arrow pierces his back, all Yamato can feel is pride. He made it back. And now, he's going to make it right.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


End file.
